Semantics in Japanese Kanji

1. Semantics in Japanese Kanji 富士山 登山 [tozan] climbing 火山 [kazan] volcano

2. Kanji • Around 50 000 kanji • 5th century from China • 3000 in daily usage • 200 kanji account 50 % • 1000 kanji 90 % • 2000 kanji 99% • Varying pronunciations due to historical reasons: • on-yomi (chinese reading) • kun-yomi (japanese reading)

3. 下 shita/shimo =under, down, below 下 moto = under …下 ...ka = under..., below... (-> 影響下 = under the influence) 下りる oriru = descend, get down 下ろす orosu = take/put down 下さい Kudasai = give to me, grant to me 下さる kudasaru = give, grant, bestow 下がる sagaru = hang down(vi), come down 下げる sageru = hang(vt), lower, move back 下町 shitamachi = downtown (+town) 下着 shitagi = underwear (+wear) 靴下 kutsushita = socks (shoe+) 下院 kain = Lower House (+House) 下記 kaki = below-mentioned (+describe) 下部 kabu = lower part (+part) 下落 geraku = fall, degradation (+fall) 下品 gehin = vulgar, unrefined (+quality) 下半期 shitahanki = latter half year (+half+period) 下旬 gejun = last ten days (+ tendays) *下手 heta = unskillful, poor at (+hand) 下　 o-, kuda-, sa-, shita, shimo (kun) ka, ge (on)= under, lower, down, inner, inferior, latter half

5. Hiragana　ひらがな Transformed originally from Kanji in the 9thcentury Used: to represent readings of Kanji to teach new Kanji to represent grammatical features (particles, auxiliary verbs and the inflections of words) Katakana カタカナ Correspondent to hiragana (46 moras) Used in foreign names in loan words in onomatopoemic words Two sets of syllabary characters

6. [kan-ji] [te-ki-su-to] text [ko-no] this [hi-ra-ga-na] このテキストは漢字とひらがなと カタカナで書いてある。 [to] and [wa] topic particle [de] by [ka-i-te a-ru] is written [ka-ta-ka-na]

7. Previously held believe in reading Japanese 山 やまyama

8. Naming Kanji slower than HiraganaFeldman & Turvey (1980) • Color words usually are written in Kanji  frequency effect predicts that Kanji naming faster 黒 緑 茶色 灰色 朱色 栗色 くろ みどり ちゃいろ はいいろ しゅいろ くりいろ kuro midori chairo haiiro shuiro kuriiro Kana was named faster Kanji -> lexicon -> phonology?

9. Saito (1981)- abstract - • Reading-out task: • Kana words were read out faster than Kanji words • Silent reading: • Kanji were judged faster than Kana.

10. Kanji words easier to identify than Katakana words(Yamada, Mitarai & Yoshida, 1991) 1s 30ms response **** **** 1-4 characters kanji/katakana word/non-word 新聞配達 エアコン エアコン **** **** Tachistoscopic study

11. Kanji words and their constituent characters were identified faster than katakana words of same lenght • The effect of script type disappeared in non-word condition • Not complexity but inferability Whole word identification Constituent word identification

12. Vocal inference only in KanaKimura (1984) Synonymity judgement of pairs of words in • Kanji • Hiragana, with or without concurrent articulation (nro 1-5) ichi, ni, san, yon, go, ichi, ni, san, yon, go, ichi, ni, san, yon, go, ... • CRITICS (Leong & Tamaoka, 1995) • Unfamiliarity of seeing words in Hiragana • Homonyms in Hiragana (7 of 30 pairs) • esim. kyoukai =church, association or border 結果　ー　実験 けっか　ー　じっけん

13. Semantics and phonological access Yamada (1998) かわ -> kawa 川 -> kawa かわ ->river 川 -> river 1) Naming faster than 2) Translation faster than

14. Reading Kanji in lexical and semantic level:semantics, ortography and phonology(Morita & Tamaoka) 1) Lexical decision task "To respond as quickly and as accurately as possible deciding if the item was correct japanese two-kanji compound word 2) Proofreading: " to decide as accurately as possible if the words in the sentence were correct" in phonology: "if you find nonword in the sentence please press the button as soon as possible" • Semantic decision at the sentence level "To read by meaning and decide whether the words in the sentence were correct/misspelling (in phonology)"

15. Ortography of Kanji:Morita and Tamaoka (2001) • 予約booking, reservation • 矛約 orthographically similar nonword • 吐約 orthographically dissimilar nonword

16. Semantics of Kanji:Morita and Tamaoka (2001) • 残額[zan-gaku] = The money left over (real word) • 余額semantically similar nonword (余~残= left over) • 乱額semantically dissimilar nonword (乱 = disorder)

17. Phonology of Kanji:Morita and Tamaoka (2002) • 規則[kisoku] = rule regulation (real word) • 基則pseudo-homophone (nonword) • 想則[sou-soku] phonetically dissimilar (nonword)

18. Reaction times:Comparison of 3 studies Experiment 1: Lexical decision Experiment 2: Proofreading Experiment 3: Semantic decision

19. Error rates (%)Comparison of 3 studies Experiment 1: Lexical decision Experiment 2: Proofreading Experiment 3: Semantic decision

20. Not only semantics • Leong & Tamaoka (1995) ” kanji are not always accessed directly through the visual or lexical route • difficult/rare kanji may be processed via phonetic recoding • chlidren and less skilled readers • more influence of concurrent articulation

21. Another story • Parallel processing of semantics and phonology • For example: Phonologically mediated access to meaning for Kanji: Is a rows still a rose in Japanese Kanji?   (Wydell, Patterson and Humphreys, 1993)

22. Parafoveal view What can be extracted from paravovea in natural reading? • Word length information (Rayner, Fischer, & Pollatsek, 1998) • Orthographic features (Beauvillain & Doré, 1998) • Frequency (Kennedy, 1998; 2000; Hyönä & Bertram, 2004) • Phonology • Semantics Text features Readers skills Script type

23. Semantics and parafoveal view in Japanese • The role of semantics in reading Kanji • Meaning entities • High information density • Semantic influence from parafoveal kanji?

24. Experimental setting

25. Boundary technique 赤になった。 red 1) そしてその花は赤になった。red 2) そしてその花は血になった。blood 3) そしてその花は歩になった。walk 4) そしてその花は気になった。spirit Then that flower became red. 赤になった。 red 赤になった。 red 赤になった。 red

26. Important features • Natural reading condition • Frequency (word/character?) • Complexity • Number of strokes • Number of constituents • Familiarity and frequency • Age of Acquisition • Imageability • Reader skills

27. References • Feldman, L.B. & Turvey, M.T. (1980). Words written in kana are named faster than the same words written in kanji. Language and Speed 23, 141-147 (abstract only) • Flores d'Arcais, G. B. & Saito, H. (1993). Lexical decomposition of complex Kanji characters in Japanese readers. Psychological Research, 55, 52-63. • Flores d'Arcais, G. B., Saito, H., & Kawakami, M. (1995). Phonological and semantic activation in reading kanji characters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 21, 34-42. • Kess, J. F. & Miyamoto, T. (1997). Accessing the japanese mental dictionary through the japanese writing system. ??? • Kimura, Y. (1984). Concurrent vocal interference: Its effect on kana and kanji, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36 A, 117-131. • Leong, C. K. & Tamaoka, K. (1995). Use of phonological information in processingkanji and katakana by skilled and less skilled Japanese readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 377-393. • Saito, H. (1981). Japanese Journal of Psychology, 52, 266-273, in japanese (abstract only). • Yamada (1998). The time course of semantic and phonological access in naming kanji and kana words. Reading and Writing: an Interdisciplinary journal, 10, 425-437. • Yamada, J. Japanese kanji as a semantically based orthography. Psychological reports, 84, 637-642)